


Point of No Return

by Severina



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Community: tamingthemuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-31
Updated: 2013-03-31
Packaged: 2017-12-07 01:12:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/742380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I killed a man."  She doesn't mean to say it like that, so bluntly.  Doesn't mean to say it at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Point of No Return

**Author's Note:**

> Set sometime after Episode 308, but before the finale. Written for LJ's tamingthemuse community, for the prompt "radius". This prompt gave me hives.
> 
> * * *

She killed a man.

Maggie relives it all in her dreams, night after night. The squelching crack as Glenn ripped apart the walker's forearm. The solid weight of the bone in her hand. The smooth, liquid slide as the bone pierced the flesh of the man's neck, his eyes wide and shocked as his warm blood gushed over her fingers.

Beyond everything else, beyond the horror of sitting bound, helpless yet still able to hear the merciless beating being inflicted on Glenn in the next room; beyond the humiliation of what the Governor did to her. Beyond that, there is this: she killed a man.

She wonders if he truly believed that she was a terrorist, or if he knew the truth. She wonders if he had a wife who made it through, who now sits in Woodbury plotting revenge against the woman who took her husband's life. She wonders if the wife of the man she killed will be among the group that attacks the prison, today or tomorrow or next week.

Maggie wraps her hands around the mug of coffee, tucks her feet up on the folding chair. Listens to the sounds of the prison – Judith cooing in her sleep, the creak of a spring as someone turns restlessly in his bunk, the ever-present moans from the walkers at the fence. She lifts her head when another sound intrudes, the quiet pad of feet on the concrete floor.

"Can't sleep?"

"I killed a man." She doesn't mean to say it like that, so bluntly. Doesn't mean to say it at all. 

Carol just blinks, reaches for the Folgers and spoons the granules into a mug. The water Maggie'd heated earlier is only tepid now; Carol pours it anyway. Settles into the chair opposite her without a word.

"I'd do it again," Maggie says.

"He was trying to hurt you."

Maggie remembers the smell of him, the sickly sweet cologne that couldn't mask the odours of stale sweat and whiskey. She remembers his breath, sour in her face. The gun in his hand, the arrogance in his eyes. The way he gasped when the bone slid home. 

"You protected yourself," Carol says. "You protected someone you love. You did what you had to do. I can't find fault with that." She takes a sip from her mug, crinkles her nose at the taste. "Neither should you."

Maggie meets her eyes. Carol's husband was gone before she came to the farm, but Maggie's heard the stories. "Did you ever--?"

"Want to?" Carol finishes. "Every day. I told myself that I wasn't stopping him for Sophia's sake. If I hurt him back, Sophia would be left alone." She shrugs, thin shoulders moving under her threadbare sweater. "The truth is, I was scared."

The bone was wet and cold in her hand, slippery. Maggie remembers curling her fingers around it, feeling the cracked ridges against her palm. Testing the heft of it in her fist. Knowing what she'd have to do, when the time came. 

Carol sets her mug down. "I'm not scared anymore."

Maggie is still scared. Afraid of what may come, afraid of the kind of person she may become in these end days. But she nods, places her own mug on the table. She knows the choice has already been taken from her. She'll defend her family, against walkers or humans. Or die trying.


End file.
